My interest in researching our family history began with the stories I remembered my grandmother telling me about my great-grandmother Ellen Wilson Hemingway and her family. There were things that I found to be true and other things perhaps exaggerated or attributed to the wrong person. This began my amazing journey into the past.

A recent visit to Dewsbury, the first in many years, was a pretty sorrowful experience. The town centre that I knew in my childhood and early adulthood had changed almost beyond recognition. Above all, I was sad to see how many shops and buildings looked derelict and boarded up. Chatting…

The story of John Hemingway of Dewsbury, WR Yorkshire, who was Master Mason on the stonework of the world famous Britannia Bridge across the Menai Strait. John was a partner in Nowell, Hemingway and Pearson.

Recent research has accidentally brought four strands of history together. The first two are the history of crime and punishment, featured in my previous article…and the Kingdom of Elmet (in “Who do you think you are?”). The third is the Fozzard family of West Ardsley, WR Yorkshire, from whom I…

A brief history of crime and punishment from the 17th to 19th centuries. The Wakefield House of Correction, Rothwell Debtors’ Prison and York Castle Prison are highlighted. The article gives family case histories of those who skirted the edges of the law and were sometimes punished.